


Tsaagan

by Eriyji



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Prequel, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29603640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eriyji/pseuds/Eriyji
Summary: As Dalamud casts its calamitous shadow over Hydaelyn, two young scholars wander a dying star.
Kudos: 1





	Tsaagan

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIV is owned by Square Enix.

Kiwal scrubbed the skin around his scales with resolute, manic conviction. Each motion of a hard-bristled brush lashed raw red streaks into his pale arms, marred at junctions by stony, lacertine growths. He was a Xaela. That is what they called him. Part Spoken, part Scalekin, in the words of the three-eyed men. Voidal, draconic, half beast, visited by every possible corruption on the star. A child of the barbaric Azim Steppe; destined to roam under the moonlit auspice of his vulgar goddess. In truth, he was of the Malqir. The Tsaagan-Malqir -- The estranged offshoot of their steppe-bound cousins, who had ventured westward to a mountain home many winters past. Old adages were never forgotten. By way of the test of Kharaqiq, the strong-minded ruled over mighty and feeble alike.

A wet, clawed hand set the brush against the edge of a bricked pond. His pinched saurian grasp plucked the edge of a chipped forearm scale, held firmly twixt thumb and forefinger. He pulled, testing the resistance of flesh and chitin. Some of it gave way. Peeling. Pain like levin shot through him as he recoiled forward with a breathless hiss. His body creased behind the blur of foggy eyes, tail hammering reflexively against the brickwork. Thin slit pupils opened wide. A stir coursed through his form.

"You don't suppose they'd have installed a privy nearby?" A voice called from the underbrush. The Xaela froze, crossing himself. "Pissed on just about every plant here."

"I doubt it very much," came Kiwal's curt, ambiguous reply. "Would you like me to examine your humours again? It would only take a moment."

"No, lad. No more checks. We should leave -- Head west while the wind's at our back. You must surely have grown weary of this place by now."

"I cannot in good conscience abide by letting you continue on unwell, and I am yet to make an assessment on the nature of these ruins. There is surely no need to depart with any haste. Besides, we need..." He coughed. "Respite. For a spell."

"It's been eight bells, Ki. The cold moons are coming. Put it off any longer and we miss what's left of the sun."

"But there is more to be-"

"Kiwal."

"...Ah. Yes, so be it. My apologies." He murmured. Apprehension clawed at his insides but he acquiesced without any further mite of hesitation. He knew Leo liked it that way. From his basking spot beside a patch of dry dead grass, Kiwal arose with a usual theatrical, beleaguered groan. His bodily atrophy had set in long before there was any inclination to depart from camp -- Each visible fibre of his form tensed to lock in support, thin sinewy limbs straining to keep the frail, stunted Au Ra upright, lily white skin and alabaster hair near luminescent in the sun-drenched, yellowing dawn. Hardened, scale-covered digits took the time to languish against him, wearily dragging down his face; cheekbones stretching taut like hollow inlets beneath his sunken narrow eyes. His brow was hid behind a halo of the messy white tresses that escaped his prior attempt at a ponytail, all sullied by specks of dirt and foliage. 

Kiwal paused, as rays of light shone through a ruined stone arch. Arrays of carved faces interlocked across the veneer, each one in varying states of duress. He had studied those works the night before, gazing blankly up from underneath, in the dim Ilsabardian starlight. They were ancient beyond distinction; yet he could not quite place their maker. How the stone twisted, and coiled up to the heavens, wrapping around itself like muscle over bone. The rib of some great stone giant, he thought.

“Gods, Ki... You look dreadful.” 

There was no quick retort. Kiwal knew how he looked — He felt it, too. Leo gazed back, his usual contented self. The young Elezen had made mention of his home aplenty, the Twelveswood, a domain from every account as ethereal as he. Ageless in composure and countenance, bereft of scar or blemish, Leo’s worldliness made his exuberant enthusiasm all the more uncanny. They had trekked from Azim to Bozja without so much as an unplanned detour. Though the accompanying party had been whittled and withered, for one reason or another, the Elezen’s indomitable confidence did not.

“My apologies. T’was insensitive to say out loud,” He announced, his low dulcet tones filling a brief silence. 

“It’s quite alright, Leo.” 

They packed their effects in silence. It took no more than a quarter of a bell. As light spilled over the glassy volcanic ridges far off on the horizon, the two set off towards a billowing wall of churning dust, dragged along by the Bozjan westerlies. The further they approached, the more it consumed his periphery. It reeked of sulphur.

“There are patches of dark all along the mainland,” Leo said.

“Dark?” A worried reply. 

“Every bell of the day. Gloom hung across the northlands for years, or so the story goes. That much ash and aether blasted into the sky, from all the ceruleum fire. Enough to blot out the sun. It beggars belief -- Can you imagine it?” 

“I shouldn’t like to.” Kiwal paused again. “Will it impede our crossing?” 

“Battlegrounds are seldom fit for easy travel. However, the alternative would be a track through Garlemald proper.”

“There would be no hope for us.“

“I know.” Leo took a long look back. He marched spryly, paces past Kiwal, who struggled along against a wooden staff. Ki could feel a biting chill in the air, breathing a misted exhale into rubbed leather gloves. He shivered in the cold, as he gazed along the back of Leo’s wind-swept silhouette. A broad strip of dark skin glistened between his chest-wrapped scarf and broad, long kilt. Turquoise eyes stared at the back of a sable mane of hair. It was tied up behind his head, like a braided tail. He enjoyed the way it bobbed up and down. 

“You were up late, Ki.” 

“I was reading.” 

“That you were. Not that I expected much else from a scion of the storied Malqir. Lewphon, this time?”

“Yuyucha. The Arcanist.”

“Riveting! Your dearest mother set you up to that one, did she?” A snide laugh emanated from up ahead.

“Not at all!” Kiwal huffed. “‘Tis by my own volition. The arts merely suit a Malqir.” 

“Ah, but of course. She had some strong words to say about my conjury, when I first arrived. Redundant, or so she said. Thoughtless magicks, some 'Dotharli hexwork' that I'd surely visit upon your tribe. Wouldn’t let me near your yurt, ‘till your scales grew pale and cheeks bluer than blue. She's a stubborn woman. Fierce.” Leo skipped over a loose pile of mosaic rubble. He danced along the beat of conversation just the same. “Reminds me of the Miqo’te girls, the Keepers. Mothers run affairs in those tribes, too -- Just like your darling Khatun.” 

“Miqo’te? The Couerl-men?”

“I’d caution against you calling them that, but, aye.” He laughed, again. “You’ve much to learn outside those dusty old tomes, little Ki. Gridania may be quite the shock.” 

"I've read plenty enough about Eorzea. 'Tis merely..." Ki waited for his mind to put together the pieces, finding purchase to articulate himself. "Placing it all to an image. Something real. 'The rational does not eclipse experience in its totality'."

"Who wrote that one?"

"I did."

A howl emanated from the dusty threshold. The two of them froze, gaze cast upwards at the wall of smog lingering on the western wind; it sent chills coursing through Kiwal. Another howl rang out. Louder. Machinic. Low and sullen -- Rattling against his horns.

"What is that?" Ki asked, frantic thoughts mounting within.

"Be quiet."

"You must have some idea-"

"Silence, Kiwal." Leo snapped. The Elezen's posture sank low, out of instinct, for what good it did. They crested a small mound, the downward turn of an outstretched, craggy plateau; a shroud of dark sediment kicked up against the prevailing winds. The Xaela saw a light shining through. Red, crimson red, peering through the smoke cover. 

"Bastards..." Leo picked up the pace. Ki followed quickly behind. Forward, deeper into the dark. “If we can get into the cloud before it passes through, we might...” 

Suddenly, magitek engines cut through the obscurity. An airship. Ki judged the distance -- A few hundred yalms out. Flat ground between them and a hulking, shuddering behemoth. Searchlights. Certain death. He imagined the blinding glare, fire on his skin. 

It all clicked, again.

"Keep to the left." The Xaela stammered. "Nine paces." 

They moved.

Just like that, a beam of light traced the ground they had just crossed. Kiwal knew this, of course. He had seen it happen a half dozen times -- Each potentiality transpiring, etching into his recollection, forgotten as the next instance passed, leaving only pangs and flashes of unremembered futures roiling through his mind. It resulted as instinct, predictions of an uncanny quality.

"Always a step ahead, Kiwal!" Leo grinned. The great metal creature flew along, steel groaning out into the dark, its many white eyes scanning the narrow path unto a swift demise they had escaped by mere seconds. Swarms of spherical machines orbited its circumference, reflecting against the searchlights like a flock of shimmering stars. Kiwal pinched the bridge of his nose, wrenching his eyes shut. A moment of blessed respite to assuage the nausea. 

"..'Tis an unseemly boon you have, lad, but we're wont to give the Gods our thanks for it."

"The Udgan told us..." Ki caught his breath. "It brought our tribe closer to Nhaama."

"Aye, that it might -- But we're long out of her domain now, little one. Neither the twelve nor gods of the Steppe watch over this place. Given away to woodsin many winters back. Best we get on our way."

Kiwal nodded with a sober conviction. He raised his cravat from a collar, wrapping it into a makeshift mask, and set off further into the ashen storm. The Imperial presence in the Eastern territories had been limited beyond air-bound ferries of supplies and troops, since Noah van Gabrath turned his attention onto the southern front. Wandering refugees were as likely to be swallowed up by the landscape; or made an example of by the locals. A land shrouded in an aether-sick gloaming attracted many hungry mouths.

Bells passed. The two walked until they could walk no longer, finding purchase to make camp in a small bubble of conjured magicks. Leo's staff pulsed with resonant energy, propped up against his pack. The storm raged outside. 

"This place is intolerably lonely." Kiwal prodded a fire's embering coals, watching the only true light in a sunless sky drift around like motes of dust. His ruffled blouse drifted around him, as if it were caught in a gentle breeze. "How do they live like this? The Garleans."

Leo murmured from his bedroll. "They don't. His Radiance deemed the wastes fit for his subjects, save the ones pure of blood and hale enough to serve their country. The lucky ones hide away inside castra littered around the capital; 'tis all snow and rime for malms. Bit like Ishgard, eh? Supposing you'll be seeing that sooner, 'iffin you get the chance."

"I was under the impression the Ishgardians were not partial to us," said Kiwal.

"They don't much like anyone, save their kinsfolk. Close knit group. Who told you that, Ki?"

"Hazri. She spoke of the Orl -- Saw their caravans. They fled to Ishgard, and disappeared. Never sent a single word back." 

"'Haps we can look ourselves, then." The Elezen stirred in silence. "Things will get better from here. There'll be an adventure or two in you yet, lad. Not that criss-crossing the star at your age is easily done, mind you -- Few in Eorzea will have claim to as much."

"Silver lining, then." Ki scoffed. "I suppose that makes this whole grim ordeal palatable for you? More stories to tell in your taverns and brothels?"

"Watch it, boy. The first round's still on me, lest you decide to pick up an attitude 'fore we arrive."

They laughed, quietly. Yellow columns of light streamed through the cloud cover. It was sickly. Washed out. 

It looked as if the world was ending.


End file.
